Okay, get ready to throw Tomatoes but I liked "Endgame".

[BenRoethig]

I liked it, but it was incomplete, it had no epilogue. They should have gotten rid of that filler episode and have a 3-part endgame follow homestead.

 

[Deckerd]

I thought it was much better than the ending to DS9 which was practically drowning in sentimentality by the end. That said, I hate time travel. It's such rubbish.

 

[kes7]

It's very entertaining as long as you close your eyes for the C/7 crap and don't think about it too much. Great acting, enjoyable dialogue, lots of action, eye-candy special effects. It's only in the analysis afterward that it falls apart.

 

[RyuRoots]

Well, you're free to like any episode you wish, although I'll hold you to the tomato thing if I ever meet you in person.

RyuRoots:

Well, if we were to meet, I would say, put the tomato down my friend. It's just a fictional piece of work we are discussing here.

Dude, it's a joke. It's obviously a joke.

Anyway, I actually agree with you that cramming too much stuff is bad for a finale (even if I couldn't possibly disagree more about DS9's finale in that regard) but the problem is that it didn't cover ANYTHING important. DS9 brought closure to Sisko's arcs with being the Emissary and dealing with Dukat. TNG came full circle with Q judging humanity, but acting as something of a mentor. In Endgame, some Borg get "blowed up real good".

And I must disagree. I think that removing those personal stories when they arrive guts the ending of any value. In DS9, we see what happens to the whole crew as the war ends. In TNG, while AGT is largely a Picard story, we do get some good scenes showing how they've bonded and developed over the show, culminating in the poker game at the end. And VOY, whose entire purpose for seven years has been "to get home" has an end that can be described without omitting a single detail, as "they get home."

 

[kathrynJaneway2]

i liked endgame it wasnt one of my fav episodes but it did have me in tear at the end. they got home. and as i watching u could tell that kate mulgrew was very choked up knowing it was the end of the road for voyager. i dont half miss voyager and its crew.

 

[vas2009]

I liked endgame. I Didn't like the C/7 CRAP. However I thought Janeway was Great. The end where they blow out of a borg sphere infront of a fleet of ships lol!

Sometimes people think way too much into things... it is always entertaining picking apart every detail and debating the tempral prime directive and how far back to go if your gonna mess with the timeline, but I enjoyed the end for what it was because I really DIDN'T want it to end

I would have prefered more closure though.

 

[Luther Sloan]

Dude, it's a joke. It's obviously a joke.

Ryu Roots:

Yeah, I should have guessed (that you were joking) by the name of this thread, but it didn't click with me at the time when I was writing.

Anyway, I actually agree with you that cramming too much stuff is bad for a finale (even if I couldn't possibly disagree more about DS9's finale in that regard) but the problem is that it didn't cover ANYTHING important. DS9 brought closure to Sisko's arcs with being the Emissary and dealing with Dukat. TNG came full circle with Q judging humanity, but acting as something of a mentor. In Endgame, some Borg get "blowed up real good".

I agree. That completing an arc for the main character (Sisko) is important.

In fact, DS9 did indeed tie up important arcs in it's finale, but they felt unnatural, though. For example: I find it hard to believe that almost the entire senior staff of DS9 would just pack up their bags at once and leave immediately after the war was over. It just seemed forced and unbelievable that they would do something like that. Plus, the peace treaty with the Dominion felt overly rushed, as well. It just all seemed way too convenient to me.

As for TNG's finale: It didn't really tie up any important arcs. Worf didn't have a bastard child with Troi. Data didn't become more human. Picard didn't show that he was still effected by the Borg. Sure, Q had humans on trial for humanity again like he did in the pilot episode. Ooooh, real exciting. Let's come full circle to a boring story line again and mix it up with something else. But nothing was really tied up, though.

Voyager's finale (Endgame) felt natural & tied up these important things....

1. Crew got home (A goal established on day one)

2. Janeway is put into similar dilemma like in Caretaker

3. Tom and B'elanna's baby is born safely in the Alpha Quadrant and possibly will join Starfleet when she is older.

4. The Doctor will possibly get an official name and get married to a human woman.

5. Reginald Barclay will more than likely be life long friends with the Voyager crew.

6. Chakotay and Seven get romantically serious with one another.

7. Certain members of the crew would have suffered if it wasn't for Janeway's sacrifice.

8. Harry possibly becomes a Captain.

9. Voyager will possibly end up becoming an inspiration and get turned into a museum in San Francisco.

10. The Borg are delivered a crippling blow with the destruction of their intergalactic trans-warp conduit, and the death of a Borg Queen.

And I must disagree. I think that removing those personal stories when they arrive guts the ending of any value. In DS9, we see what happens to the whole crew as the war ends. In TNG, while AGT is largely a Picard story, we do get some good scenes showing how they've bonded and developed over the show, culminating in the poker game at the end. And VOY, whose entire purpose for seven years has been "to get home" has an end that can be described without omitting a single detail, as "they get home."

Yes, but I felt more of a connection in the scene where Harry Kim gives a speech about..."Life is more about the journey than it is the destination" than I did with the TNG Poker game sequence at the end of All Good Things.

Sure, the TNG Poker scene was classic for what the series was. But the TNG finale just didn't do anything for me, though. It was just another mediocre TNG episode to me.

As for Voyager getting home: We do get a possible glimpse into the future of what is going to happen to the Voyager crew. Sure we are looking at a possible future (that may or may not happen now). But that doesn't mean certain events are still not going to play out or still happen, though.

Also, the family of the show was the Voyager crew. We never connected with the families of Voyager. This wasn't a show like Lost where they had flashbacks all the time so we could learn and connect with Voyager's loved ones. This show was about the crew of Voyager.

I mean, seriously. It doesn't need to be showed if we already can predict the reactions of Voyager's family members or loved ones.

It's just redundant information.
I mean, sure. Did I feel like I was left hanging in not seeing Voyager land on Earth and not seeing any additional family to crew member reunions?

At first. It bugged me a little. But then i realized that I didn't need to see it. That whatever they showed me on screen it would pale in comparison to my imagination.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

When TNG ended with Picard sitting down to the poker game, I thought, "What's this?" Picard didn't interact that way with his crew for 7 years, why now?

The one thing Janeway did nearly daily for the last 2555 days, was "interact" with her Voyager crew, by touching them as well as being touched by them.

I didn't mind not seeing Harry's family hug the young man, or Janeway's Mom and Sister greet her in Indiana, but I would have liked a little more crew interaction at the end, even if it was simply "quiet/I'm still in shock" interaction.

Perhaps "Endgame's" ending would have been more accepted if it went this way.


The Bridge of Voyager, after Voyager blows up the BORG sphere within which it hid.

JANEWAY: We did it.

(Janeway turns to look at Chakotay in shock as he smiles and grasps her hand in congratulation.)

KIM: We're being hailed.

Janeway looks up at Kim as he lets a hopeful grin escape his control and she walks towards his ops station before issuing the order.

JANEWAY: On screen.... Sorry to surprise you. Next time, we'll call ahead.
ADMIRAL PARIS [on viewscreen]: Welcome back.

As she pats Kim on the back, she walks towards Tuvok's tactical station and the best friend who will no longer need to face the ravages of the degenerative neurological condition and she smiles knowingly at him before turning back to the Admiral.

JANEWAY: It's good to be here.
ADMIRAL PARIS [on viewscreen]: How did you?
JANEWAY: It'll all be in my report, sir.
ADMIRAL PARIS [on viewscreen]: I look forward to it.

Looking down she quietly remembers the woman who helped make this day possible.

JANEWAY: Thanks for your help, Admiral Janeway.

EMH [OC]: Sickbay to the Bridge. (baby crying in background. Kim chuckles and Janeway smiles knowingly at Tom.)


[Sickbay]

EMH: Doctor to Lieutenant Paris. There's someone here who'd like to say hello.

[Bridge] Janeway steps down to the helm and places her arm over Tom's shoulder.
JANEWAY: You'd better get down there, Tom.
PARIS: Yes, ma'am.

Turning back towards Chakotay, she motions to the empty seat at the helm.

JANEWAY: Mister Chakotay, the helm.
CHAKOTAY: Aye, Captain.

As he takes his seat, the Captain briefly grasps his shoulder before releasing it to return to the Captain's chair in the center of Voyager's Bridge.

Before she turns to sit down one final time on the center Command seat of the ship that carried her 75000 light years over 7 tumultuous years, she looks up and locks eyes with Seven of Nine who nods at her.

Turning to sit down, she thinks of Kes. Then her mind races through Cavit and Stadi, Durst & Bennett, Carey, and Hogan, Kaplan and Tuvix, Ballard and Lane, Souder and Bedari, Ransom and so many others before she can finally say the words she longed to say.

JANEWAY: Set a course, for home.

 

[Luther Sloan]

Yeah, I would have liked that version.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Janewayis not the Queen of social interaction.

Suder murdering people wasn't a surprise to much anyone else. She spent a month rocking in her Quarters in the dark in Night, and 6 years down the track she found four crewmen that with the bare exception of Basics part II had never been on an away mission, and to boot she refused to take any of her crew as a lover.

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

Yeah, I would have liked that version.

Yes, I agree with that. It would have given just the right amount of closure.

 

[firecrackerrrr]

I loved it too! I hated the C/7 thing and I wish they had some kind of reunion or shown a bit more than just the five short minutes in the Delta Quadrant but I liked it quite a bit

 

[Gaith]

The Next Generation's finale was boring.

Endgame is shite. Take it, Michelle Erica Green:

So Janeway fulfills the promise she made to get her crew home in "Caretaker," the way she said she would in "The Q and the Grey" -- by perseverance, hard work and faith. Then she decides that's not good enough, and violates everything sacred to a Starfleet officer in order to find a shortcut. Imagine if Kirk decided that the lives of "his people" -- Spock in The Wrath of Khan, or his nephew in "Operation: Annihilate!" or Edith Keeler in "City on the Edge of Forever" -- took precedent over the best interests of Earth and the Federation. Imagine if Sisko had decided to stay in the alternate universe because his love for Jennifer mattered more to him than Earth or Bajor. Imagine if Picard had brought a Borg invasion fleet to Earth because he didn't want to risk the lives of his Enterprise crewmembers.


Captain Janeway has fulfilled the destiny she found in the Delta Quadrant. She has become Annorax, the crazed time traveler from "The Year of Hell" who rewrites galactic history to save his beloved. For what it's worth, Janeway succeeds on her first try, but it doesn't change the appalling significance of her actions. Had she failed -- had she been assimilated with knowledge from the future, and sent a Borg sphere to Earth in the process -- she could have been responsible for the deaths of billions. It's ironic that although she changes the timeline to save Seven of Nine, "Endgame" proves that Voyager can survive without Seven. They get home. They make scientific advances without Seven's Borg know-how. They lose only a couple of crewmembers a year -- not at all a bad record for a Starfleet vessel, if Kirk's and Picard's records are any indication. Yet it's not good enough for Janeway, who worries more about the personal happiness of a few close friends than the future of everyone in the Alpha Quadrant. Kathryn Janeway is unworthy of the uniform she wears. Star Trek's first female captain has ended her run by using theft, coercion and cheating, going so far as to risk destroying Earth to give herself a second chance.

...

Here is the moral of "Endgame," in case all those young males in the demographic audience are paying attention to something beyond the explosions, the Borg Queen's corset and Seven's breasts. Forget the lessons of "City on the Edge of Forever," forget the lessons of The Wrath of Khan, forget the lessons of First Contact -- your own happiness is all that matters, not the needs of the many, not the continuity of time. Forget the sacrifices made during the Dominion War, forget the suffering of the Bajorans during the Occupation, forget that the old enemy Klingons are now Federation allies -- those are things that could have been changed before they started, so they are meaningless. Forget the journey that is life, the necessary losses, the way sometimes sorrow leads to happiness later. Instead, seize the moment when you can, no matter who may pay later. Think of exploration only as a means to an end, and when you don't like what you find, change destiny. If something goes wrong in your own life or the lives of your closest friends, it's fine to destroy the lives of everyone else around you to try to fix it, because the end justifies the means.

This "Endgame" is forfeit. It's full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But it fits, because practically since the beginning, Star Trek Voyager has not been about people making tough decisions for the greater good. It's been about people whose overriding issues are selfish -- can we get home, can we save our friends from the Alien Peril of the Week, can we make our retro holodeck programs so interesting that they excuse us from not stopping to learn and teach as we head through an unknown region of our galaxy. There's no yearning for exploration, no willingness to sacrifice for the greater good. Voyager is not real Star Trek.

Also, Richard Whettestone's review: depressing but fair.

At least TATV had Riker and Troi, and didn't make a mockery of fundamental Federation values.

 

[Willieck]

Well, I don't need any reviewer to tell why I should or should not like this or any other episode. I liked this episode a lot although it would have been nice to have some sort of follow-up. This was after only an episode of a scifi TV series not a justification for the war in Iraq or some other equally important topic.

I liked it because I was entertained and that is the reason (the only reason) for which I watch Star Trek.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I enjoyed "Endgame". I liked that it gave us Voyager getting home the long way, with consequences like deaths, senile Tuvok and bitter, twisted Old Janeway, and the second way that gets everyone home happily and tidily.

I also get a kick out of applying the STXI writers' time-travel retcon (no timelines destroyed, only new ones created) and giggling at the idea of Old Barclay, Balding Tom and Miral standing around in their hideous PJ's wondering what ever happened to Admiral Janeway after she disappeared into that rift.


Seven/Chakotay, however, was utter shit. Seven/Kim, Seven/EMH, Seven/Species 8472, Seven/Neelix, Seven/Mage Kullah or Seven/hypospray would have been preferable.

 

[kimc]

I hate "Endgame" for the following reasons:

1) C/7 was creepy and out of nowhere
2) Time travel AGAIN? Not to mention the moral implications of older Janeway wrecking that timeline...
3) The borg, AGAIN? Gee, bring back the Vaadwaur or something else...ANYTHING else...

 

[Willieck]

(a) Like C/7

(b) Time Travel episodes are favourite

(c) Borg are brilliant.

 

[exodus]

(a) Like C/7

(b) Time Travel episodes are favourite

(c) Borg are brilliant.

I agree.

I like "Endgame" because besides C/7, Time Travel, the Borg, Janeway's morals and the journey home were all aspects and themes that ran through most of the entire series. It just seem natural to combine all those elements in the finale. The only complaint I do have is that it could have used an extra 10 to 15 mins too show a reunion with their loved ones upon returning home. It would have been very heart warming to see Niomi finally meet her father.

 

[Willieck]

(a) Like C/7

(b) Time Travel episodes are favourite

(c) Borg are brilliant.

I agree.

I like "Endgame" because besides C/7, Time Travel, the Borg, Janeway's morals and the journey home were all aspects and themes that ran through most of the entire series. It just seem natural to combine all those elements in the finale. The only complaint I do have is that it could have used an extra 10 to 15 mins too show a reunion with their loved ones upon returning home. It would have been very heart warming to see Naomi finally meet her father.

My feelings exactly.

 

[Gaith]

Well, I don't need any reviewer to tell why I should or should not like this or any other episode.

...

I liked it because I was entertained and that is the reason (the only reason) for which I watch Star Trek.

In that case, congrats, you're the suits'/TPTB's favorite sort of audience. Your admitted indifference to the spirit of the series helps keep it going, albeit in totally bastardized form.

Star Trek without some kind of humanistic message/philosophical underpinning is, as Michelle Erica Green notes, not real Star Trek.